I started this class with almost no knowledge of audio journalism. I don’t listen to podcasts and rarely listen to the radio, so it was interesting to learn how journalists create these stories. During class, I enjoyed learning how to use audition. I feel confident using it now because of the lessons in the beginning of the class. I also feel more comfortable observing an area than I did before the class. I always felt strange just standing to the side or sitting in the middle of a room and listening to what is happening. The in-class activity at the Illini Union helped me become more comfortable.
I learned how difficult it is to cut down my audio and script to fit in the time restraint. I was always so close to going over, and I couldn’t figure out what to cut out and what to leave in. I had the most difficulty with staying under 3:30 minutes for the feature story. I also learned how writing audio stories is difficult because I’m used to print writing and using past tense instead of present. I also usually use complex sentences, so making them simpler was also difficult.
I believe I was good at some parts of the editing process. I left enough space at the ends of the clips, so nothing sounded cut off or unnatural. I also believe I was good at voicing and pacing myself. I was nervous about voicing, since I tend to speak quickly. I had to force myself to slow down, and I think I achieved that. Out of all of my assignments, I am the proudest of my feature story. It took the most work and it paid off.
I think my two way could use the most improvement. I could have asked better questions to make the story timelier. For example, I started the interview with this question: “There was a big snowstorm last month. Can you tell me how the city prepared for the storm?” Instead of focusing on what had just happened in the storm, I could have talked more about what they are going to fix for the future. I asked a few questions about the future, but I should have asked more. I also started the story off in the past with this sentence: “Winter Storm Landon contributed to the total, dropping around a foot of snow in the beginning of the month, according to the National Weather Service.”
My cut/copy and wrap could have been better. My cut/copy was a good starting place, but I think the audio levels could be better. For my wrap, I should have used more ambience than I did. I should have used my recorder instead of my phone for better quality as well.
Throughout all of my stories, I had difficulty cutting out random sounds, like the phone ringing in the midterm. I also had an issue making sure the sound levels were consistent in my two way and feature. Some of my interviewees for my feature spoke quietly or were far away from their microphone. I tried to make the sound fit into the range, but there were still parts that were too low.
My favorite quote from this semester came from one of the interviews for my feature story. It came from Alexa Sutton, a senior from Champaign Central High School. The quote is: “I have definitely been more stressed lately because I feel like I have the constant weight looming over me like this pressure to be good enough and just really put all of my effort into it. I do feel like I’m more stressed like especially now that the AP exams are coming up and stuff.” My favorite part is the “weight looming over me” because it is vivid and perfectly captures how stress feels. Overall, I think I have a lot of good quotes from my feature story, which is why it was so difficult to figure out which ones to use. Even now I have quotes I wanted to use but I didn’t have room for them.
Something I regret from this semester is that I did not use the recorder given to me for the class as much as I wanted. Most of my interviews were conducted over the phone or through Zoom because the interviewees were busy, too far away, etc. I used my phone for ambience because I felt more comfortable using my phone than the recorder. Because most of my interviews were over Zoom, there was sometimes internet problems that made it impossible to use quotes, like breaking up, static and freezing.
I ran into the most problems during my feature story. I came close to not finishing the story because I only had one source a week before it was due. Even after posting on NextDoor, contacting the Champana Moms’ Facebook page, emailing different organizations and contacting Unit 4 and Urbana school districts, I could not find sources.
When I started my story, I thought my expert would be my hardest source, but it was the easiest one to get an interview with. I had to change my angle of the story from the honors program overall to how the students are affected by honors classes. It then changed to mostly AP classes because it happened to be the first week of AP exams. That worked almost perfectly because it made my story timely.
After my mom posted on the University of Illinois Parents and Families Facebook group, a lot of sources reached out to me. By the end of the week, I interviewed six students: two from Champaign, three from northern Illinois and one from Georgia. It was difficult to choose the quotes from all these sources because I didn’t want my story to have so many different voices. I decided to choose a few for my audio story and use an additional source in my online story.